How would you assess the overall impact on our football program? Looking at the totality of our time in the league compared to the totality of our time pre-SEC.
After 31.5 years in the SEC
- Thread starter 18IsTheMan
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ALL of our bowl wins were after joining the SEC.
I would say it hasn't been markedly different. We were a middling program before joining and are still about the same. Outside of a handful of years around 2010, we have been about the same for a long time.
I don't think HBC comes if were weren't in the SEC. It's not like we were taking the ACC by storm by any means. The 69 championship year we went 7-4. I'd say we're better off bc we saw you CAN in fact win here. And you CAN attract top coaching talent, whatever the reason he came.
I tend to agree. It feels better being in the SEC, but the overall body of work isn't terribly different. Certainly there are facility upgrades and such that don't happen if we aren't in the SEC, but all that really matters is the record. That same feeling of "almost ready to turn the corner" still hovers over the program.
Spurrier was a unicorn hire. He was 60 years old, had a huge ego and was coming off a disastrous stint as coach at Washington after his glory days at UF. He didn't want to go out as a total failure at his last stop and he knew he was a better college coach than pro. He wanted to go back to UF but they were still a little gun shy about him after he walked out on them at what had been the peak of their program and he got butt hurt because they didn't embrace him as a returning hero. Carolina was a major program with no real history of winning and a fan base that would be happy to have him and not be too demanding if he didn't win right away. He also didn't have to follow a long time successful coach. The job was perfect for what he was looking for.
I think he would have still come if we were an independent. He was head coach at Duke before UF so he wasn't an "SEC or bust" sort of coach.
As an independent we would be in far worse shape. Far less resources and little to no TV revenue. If we were in a conference it would not be as beneficial as the SEC and would not give us the resources that we need to compete. There is a reason we did not win a bowl game before we joined the SEC. We could not compete at a high level. While we have not been on top of the SEC we are competitive and have good talent. Rattler would not be here and many other top talent players if we in a conference like say the AAC that East Carolina is in. So more irrelevant with no hope of improvement without the SEC. There is a reason Clemson is dying to join.
ACC would have been a better fit and would have made for better rivalries and a better overall record in my opinion. Clemson may have blocked us from getting in but for discussion's sake, the ACC would have been better. Money would have been adequate and I think we would have been one of the top three football programs in the ACC. Our stadium would have been among the biggest and our non football sports would have done well outside of mens basketball. Bowl matchups would have been better too. For example; the Peach/Chic fil a Bowl used to match up the ACC runner up with the #4 or 5 SEC team so the ACC team should have had an advantage. Clemson has always benefitted from getting cupcake bowl matchups when they didn't win the ACC.
Not that it was an option at all! We would have been in a smaller conference at least for the first 20 years or so. Yet the successful schools in the ACC want out and would love to be in the sec.
Right. money didn’t help us because we didn’t go all in on football like some schools
Pretty much a failure with the exception of Spurrier's great 3 year run and a couple under Holtz.
I wouldn't call it a failure necessarily, but it's complicated. We have benefitted in many ways, primarily financially.
We have more money and better facilities for sure.
I would guess maybe somewhat better recruiting, though it's impossible to compare to early 90s and earlier since classes weren't ranked then and the star system and all that hadn't evolved.
We have won all of our bowl games since joining the SEC, but how many of our bowl teams would have qualified for bowls in the pre-1992 system when there were fewer than 20 bowls?
I would say we have a heightened profile by virtue of being in the SEC.
However, back to your failure comment....in spite of all the above, the conversations we are having about Gamecock football are almost entirely unchanged from those that Gamecock fans were having 40 years ago. Success is always seemingly just tantalizingly out of reach. In that sense, nothing has changed one iota. We are the same as we always have been. We've been turning the corner for decades now.
It doesn't help that a team like Missouri, who is overall fairly comparable to us (.544 vs .510 all-time win %, 15-20 bowl record vs 10-15), came into the SEC 20 years later than us but has been 2 SECCG compared to our 1 (when we became, and still are, the only 3-loss team to make it to Atlanta). When we did finally make to Atlanta, it resulted in the most lopsided less ever in the SECCG.
I wouldn't necessarily call it a failure. But you sure can't call it a success. Have we benefitted in some ways? Sure. Has it made the football team better. No.
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We are 10-7 in bowls since joining the SEC. I don't know where you got the idea we have won all of our bowl games since joining.
Do you mean "all of our bowl wins have come since joining the SEC"? That is true but we only played in 8 bowl games before joining the SEC.
We are much better off being in the SEC. Maybe not in Ws and Ls but in every other parameter. If we were still in ACC, we would be just like Clemson and Fla. State, trying to find a way out. If they cannot find a home out of ACC and UNC and Virginia go to SEC they are in trouble.
we are more noticeable and pocket more revenue now but the team still is at best average
The only reason Clem/FSU want out is their administration is money hungry. It has nothing to do with football success. If it did, they'd lock in with the ACC for 100 years. If Clem/FSU end up in the SEC, they will both suffer a hit to their football programs. Clem has the longest active 10 win streak in the country, and the 2nd ever. There's only been 3 programs in the history of CFB to post 12 consecutive 10 win seasons: Clem, FSU, and Bama. Clem and FSU aren't in that group if they're in the SEC. I highly doubt Dabo and Norvell are near as excited as the AD/Presidents of Clem/FSU are.
You have made there a VERY insightful point. South Carolina was (and is) attractive enough to get future Hall Of Fame Coaches Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier. But when the job was open, we SETTLED for a FAILED Head Coach and another coach who had never been a successful Head Coach nor OC or DC. You have to scratch your head and say WTF.
I know your original question solely concerned the football program, but I don't think you can separate it from the rest of the athletic department. Without the revenue generated by our SEC football program, we probably wouldn't have a couple of baseball national championships or women's basketball national championships, or any expectations of being a perennial contender in either sport. I know all of us would gladly trade all four of those titles for one in football, but we'd also rather have those four than nothing at all.
Speaking strictly to football, somebody said above that all of our bowl wins have come since we were in the SEC. I'll take it a step further by saying all of our bowls were better bowls because we were in the SEC. We went about 100 years without ever playing a game on New Year's day. Since joining the conference we've now beaten Michigan and Ohio State a couple of times each on New Year's Day, to say nothing of our other bowl wins. In our prior 100 years of playing football, how many top 5 teams had we beaten? One, I think? How many have we now beaten since joining the SEC? I can't recall, but it's enough that a win over a top 5 team doesn't stop us from talking about firing the coach in the very next year. Somebody said above that we wouldn't have been able to hire Spurrier without being the SEC. Not only that, but we wouldn't have been able to hire Lou either. These gains might be fairly modest compared to the the upper half of the conference, but they are formidable compared to our abysmal past.
I think this is the kind of discussion that comes up in the week after a very disappointing loss. SEC membership discussions are kind of like American immigration discussions. There's a reason why the all of the discussion is about who is coming in and never about who is leaving - because it's unfathomable that anyone would leave. I strongly suspect we are the only fanbase in the conference that even has these discussions.
If we have more money, better facilities and a higher profile since joining the SEC, how has it made zero impact on the bottom line of wins and losses? We were a middling program 40 years ago and we're still a middling program.
Are the powers-that-be (whoever that is) not actually all that interested in having a truly successful program and are content to just have the financial benefit that comes from being in the SEC? Or we just that snakebit as a program that no matter what we do, we will always be what we always have been?
Are the powers-that-be (whoever that is) not actually all that interested in having a truly successful program and are content to just have the financial benefit that comes from being in the SEC? Or we just that snakebit as a program that no matter what we do, we will always be what we always have been?
I would never suggest leaving the SEC. I'm just wondering what real, tangible benefit has been there for football. I know we all just feel better about being in the SEC, but why? Are we the ugly girl in the group and we're just happy to be in the group?
We're the Iowa St. of the SEC. Some seasons have some success, but not any hardware to speak of.
Lou was 62 and Spurrier was 60 when they took the job at South Carolina. The job was attractive to two formerly successful coaches clinging to relevance and trying to show they weren't past their prime. Both came out of retirement, Carolina didn't lure them away from another job because of the opportunity. Both of their places in the Hall of Fame were already locked up, coaching at Carolina didn't do anything to get them in.
Holtz retired for good and Spurrier walked out on the team mid season, something I can't recall any other coach doing at a major program unless there was some sort of scandal.
I stick to my earlier assertion that the South Carolina job is not a highly desirable job that is going to pull a top tier head coach away from another major program. I think the best chance for success is an up and coming G5 coach who wants to use Carolina as a way to get into a P5 job.
That is a good point. Every conference is top-heavy with a handful of teams that rotate in and out of power. I suppose our position is not really all that unique compared to comparable schools from other conferences. I don't know if fans of those other programs have accepted their situation or if they are like our fans and constantly torment themselves by thinking we're just about to turn the corner.
It's true. We got Holtz, not primarily because we were in the SEC, but because of his connection with Mike McGee. I don't recall any chatter at the time about Holtz being courted by other programs (but that was ages ago and largely pre-internet). It seems he was retired and content to be so, which is why it was such shocking news when it broke. I do think someone of his mindset was what the program needed at the time as it was totally in shambles, but we didn't hire him over a bunch of other suitors.
Spurrier, as noted above, was needing to rehab his image, which took a beating after his disastrous NFL stint. Rumor was he expected to be handed the UF job and was irked when told he'd have to interview. So he came here, I think to more or less prove he could win anywhere. He partially succeeded in that.
But, no, I don't think there's ever been a time in our history when we got a coach that anyone other major programs were pursuing. The one exception is probably Brad Scott. He was, at the time, considered one of the bright up-and-comers in the sport. No matter what we think about him now, he was the OC of the most potent offense in football and was credited with Ward's success. Of course, as it turns out, he probably had less to do with their offensive success than anyone knew and flamed out here. So the one time we DID actually get the desirable coaching hire, it blew up massively in our faces.
Because of our SEC membership and the addition of Lou and SOS we got tremendous free publicity that other "middling" programs would have died for. They must have turned green with envy when we were on tv so much and Holtz and SOS were featured so much. I don't think either of those coaches would have come here if not for SEC membership, especially SOS and probably Holtz.
I understand and didn't mean to suggest you thought we should leave. But I think the questions you pose implicitly open the door for that type of discussion and, for whatever reason, a portion of our fanbase is all to willing to walk through it.
By his own admission, Holtz came here because of his connection with McGee.
Also, the SEC was not the brand then that is now. It was obviously still a good conference, winning 3 titles in the 90s (one each for Bama, FSU and UT) but FSU was the premier team of the 90s along with the likes of Nebraska.
Doesn't make any difference if they were courted by a 100 teams or none. Both of those guys were legends, living a stress-free life and didn't need to work another day in their life. It wasn't as if they were has-beens, having been cast aside by the college football world. I seriously doubt there was a program in the country that wouldn't have hired Spurrier at that time. And does anybody think there wouldn't have been a host of programs lining up to hire Lou if he had announced he was looking to coach again? Perhaps not the Michigans and Alabama's of the world, but a slew of others would have given him a job in a heartbeat. Maybe we lucked out by being the only program to reach out to them, but they felt like they had something to prove and likely relished the opportunity to prove it in the best football conference at an underachieving top-25 revenue-generating program. Whatever their reasons, there's NO WAY they would come here to coach an independent. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise.
By his own admission, Holtz came here b/c of his connection with McGee. Also, you're thinking of the SEC in terms of the massive brand it is now. That was not the case in 1999.
But, anyway, the whole Holtz/Spurrier discussion is really beside the point. The bottom line is the state of the program, which is really no better than it was 40 years ago.
And, actually, it's kind of bad for us that two legendary coaches had their careers end poorly at USC.
Our pattern has been the same: hiring coaches to rebuild. Scott had to rebuild after Woods. Hotlz had to rebuild after Scott. Spurrier had to rebuild after Holtz. Muschamp had to rebuild after Spurrier. Beamer is having to rebuild after Muschamp.
Who is the last coach who didn't take over a bad situation here?
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Did he say that was the only reason? So, if Mike McGee had been at NC State at the time, Holtz would have coached there?
As for the SEC, it was not the the undisputed king of conferences that it is now, but in 2000, it was still generally viewed as the best football conference in America. At a minimum, it was, by far, the best football conference we could have realistically joined at the time.
Wait, we can't be the Iowa State of the SEC. Mississippi, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri have already claimed they are the Iowa States of the SEC.
Maybe we're a conference with about 6 Iowa States.
I do not know what NC State's coaching situation was like at the time. We needed a coach and he and McGee were friends. It's been way too long ago to find any articles now, but Holtz basically said McGee talked him out retirement. Without the McGee connection, Hotlz doesn't come here. SEC or not.
To your latter point, I'm not certain about that. Alabama was in the Dubose era. UGA still had Donnan and was still just a pretty good team. Obviously, there was UT and UF, but other teams were better in the 90s. The 90s was not the SEC's decade.
I do agree that neither team has that success in the SEC but with that being said UNC is a top 10 team and their game is being televised on The CW this week....the ACC is a joke....I would want out too
I'm not a proponent of us leaving, but I can understand the thought processes of those who might feel that way. From that perspective, we've given it a go for nearly 32 years and have never consistently risen above middle-of-the-pack status. In 32 years, we've had 8 seasons with a winning conference record. 50% of our time in the conference...16 of our 32 years...we've had 3 or fewer conference wins. The one year we did actually make to the SECCG, we were and remain the only 3-loss team to make it there AND we suffered the worst defeat in the history of the game.
Considering that, I can understand why some people might want to jump to another conference where we can actually win. Obviously, nobody's leaving the SEC, so it's a purely academic argument, but is it better to be a perennial also-ran in the SEC or a winner in a smaller conference? If you value money, then the former is obviously more desirable. If you value winning, the latter is more desirable.
They could have said "No thanks" and gone to another program. But we were attractive enough for them to say "YES" . That's my point. The "proof was in the pudding" in that they did come to coach here. Nobody put a gun to their head. So, it's not like South Carolina has nothing to offer. I'm not saying "pull a top tier Head Coach away from another major program". I'm saying attractive enough to hire an "up and coming" successful lower tier FBS Head Coach like a Jamie Caldwell from Liberty, a Jon Sumrall from Troy. Even then, there's no guarantee such a coach may not want to wait for another opportunity. But. the fact that 2 Hall of Famers coached here would probably be in our favor to reel in such a FBS coach. If you disagree, tell me why.
I guess it something that we are bickering about our biggest benefit from being in the SEC is having hired two AARP coaches.
If I were trying to attract an up and coming FBS coach to Carolina I don't think I'd want them to do much looking into what happened to two hall of fame coaches who came here to coach. Holtz shuffled off into the sunset with a very lackluster record and Spurrier threw up his hands and walked away mid season to avoid having a losing season his last season as a coach.
South Carolina does offer an up and coming FBS coach a chance to break into a P5 job and build his resume'. Whether that is in the SEC, ACC, B1G or whatever really isn't important. I really don't think there are a lot of FBS coaches who set a specific goal of being a head coach in the SEC and would not take another P5 job if it wasn't in the SEC.
Miles ahead, playing a very difficult schedule yearly (# 1 toughest schedule in the country this year according to Sagarin). We would probably be 5-1 this year w/a healthy Juice Wells. All we need is better recruits!